The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

 

 

Create your own review

The Legend of Zelda takes a detour in Spirit Tracks, the pseudo-sequel to 2007's Phantom Hourglass, including trains as a key ingredient. Many classic Zelda elements are present and accounted for, but half the time you will be aboard the train. Zelda purists may cry foul at the changes being introduced here, so what is the end result?

The characters are cel-shaded, and while they''re a bit on the chunky side they''re full of personality. The environments are a tad boxy, and the pixelated textures are an eyesore, but the game's bright and colorful look more than makes up for that. The music is also very good and almost completely original, sparing us tiresome remixes of Zelda themes we've heard many times before.

Zelda: Warrior Princess

I've long felt that Princess Zelda ought to take a more proactive role in these games, and Spirit Tracks gives her that opportunity. Zelda helps out by possessing the Phantom Guards that protect the Tower of Spirits. Once she has taken over an armored suit, she'll follow Link automatically and can be given directions by simply drawing a path on the screen. Players will have to use both characters wisely, and while strictly speaking this is nothing new to the series, it is perhaps the best example yet.

The difficulty of the dungeons and some of the bosses has been cranked up noticeably higher compared to Phantom Hourglass, and feels just right. The Tower of Spirits will be visited several times over the course of the game, but thankfully unlike Phantom Hourglass' Temple of the Ocean King players can skip the floors they have already completed.

The touch-screen controls work just as well as they did in Phantom Hourglass, and the way in which you use Link's assortment of items is particularly fun. Simply draw the flightpath of your boomerang, or hold-and-release to fire an arrow. You'll keep important memos on the game's many maps by simply jotting them down with the stylus. I'm amazed that no one has copied this control scheme for similar games on platforms like the iPhone.

Final Thoughts

Let there be no doubt that Spirit Tracks is an improvement over Phantom Hourglass. It bumps up the difficulty to a more enjoyable level and features some exceptional boss encounters, very cool new items, and ingenious puzzles. Transporting passengers and items lends an air of consequence to your travels, and including Zelda as a secondary character that the player can control helps to spice things up. Crossing the world map is still a slow and repetitive task that can become tiresome, but going by rail is more entertaining than sailing the seas.

Nintendo has once again outdone themselves with the hardware's unique functionality, and it's all woven together by a cute story and endless questing that is hard to resist. It's quite possibly the best game available for the platform, so don't hesitate to pick it up.

PROs:

Difficulty/challenge is nearly perfect
Touchscreen controls work almost flawlessly
Plenty of fresh new ideas, secrets
20~30+ hours of questing
Solid presentation

CONs:

Traveling takes too long
Too much backtracking
The speech recognition bits are embarrassing
Online mode from Phantom Hourglass omitted!

This game is so much fun to play! The stylus controls are easy get used to. The bosses are challenging enough to keep you coming back.

Let's be honest, it's not the best game ever. It DOES improve on Phantom Hourglass. The change from boat to train is very slick and very little change can be noticed. The controls are a bit more polished.

It's a Zelda game. People will love it whatever I write here. There are some very difficult puzzles, and balancing fighting off badguys while obeying the train signals is tough. Catching rabbits as a sidequest? Very cute. Zelda taking control of Phantoms? Novel.

Family entertainment with a nice storyline. A good buy.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 8 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

1.0 out of 5 stars playing the flute = WTF?
blowing in the mic to progress thru the story is really stupid stuck at 2nd dungeon T_T and ive completly stopped playing it

Published 7 months ago by desrow

3.0 out of 5 stars A disapointing game
I have been a long time Legend of Zelda player since the NES era, and after finishing this game I can honestly say that I absolutely find this game to be the worse ever offered... Read more

Published on Feb 21 2010 by Quy Duong Nguyen

1.0 out of 5 stars spirit tracks reaches a dead end quickly
I was very disapointed with this game for several reasons.

The game is programed in a very linear way: you need to acomplish A and then B and Then C. Read more

Published on Jan 31 2010 by Liz. C

5.0 out of 5 stars The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
As always the Legend of Zelda never lets a fan down, there are a lot of puzzles to solve and side quests to perform, the gameplay of being able to control a knight makes the game... Read more

Published on Jan 4 2010 by Terry C. Ray

5.0 out of 5 stars Great fun once again!
Zelda the Spirit Tracks is a solid game that will deliver a fun experience for the casual or the dedicated gamer. Read more

Published on Jan 4 2010 by E. Ly

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 8 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Search Listmania!